My hometown is terrorized by the Mark Twain quote of "that the coldest
winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." The platitude makes it
way through the city on buses shaped like cable cars, and gets mentioned in
hotel lobbies when an entire tourist family realizes that they should have
packed something more than their Hard Rock tee shirts and shorts. This is
not an "it's not the heat but the humidity" city. The costal fog is much a
summer ritual as waiting for the Giants to get over .500, the North Beach
street fair, and watching Willie Brown deal with Muni.
But despite my over packing of my usual race equipment - extra power bars,
running shoes, and a back up jersey, I was unable to bring the costal fog
with me to the Rock & Roll marathon in San Diego. It was a scorcher of a
day. The piercing sun was a dermatologist's dream.
The race itself was well organized for the parts I could remember. In the
blurry last few miles that all marathons become, it seemed to melt into a
Frank Zappa concoction of Rock & Roll, teenage cheerleaders, and Advil.
There is trouble in the deep haze when you get band number 21 confused with
mile 21.
But at times the right rock ballad did push me along. I was happy that it
was not four hours of Britney Spears covers, which would have hurt my
stomach far more than the ultima sports drink did. There is a difference
between having a good time in a marathon, and a good marathon time. I am not
sure if you can do both in the same race.
I ran this one concentrating more about the road than the clock. It is the
kind of thing I am trying to seep into other parts of my life - to deal with
those moments like last week when my father suggested that I start using
Agrecian formula. Somehow I don't think my medicine cabinet is ready just
yet.
But somewhere in background of this season there has been the steady notion
of time. At the team social we learned from Dr. Ablin that it takes four
months from a million cancer cells to go to a billion. The malignant growth
goes from a silver dollar to a quart. It represents the danger of
exponential growth.
But the flip side is that four months is also the amount of time it takes to
train for a marathon. By being an ambassador to the team and recruiting more
friends to join in the cause either by helping with funds or water stops, we
get exponential growth in funding research. Towards that end I am collecting
fundraising letters to hand over as templates to next web captain.
Four months brought us countless job changes. I think the number one cross
training activity of the team was interviewing.
Four months brought us two births. I figure I have few years until Skylar
beats my marathon time. That's when I take Geritol.
Four months brought us a tragic loss. I have no words that are better than
John's. I feel far more humbled by the efforts that a great deal of people
did helping the McDermott family than anyone's marathon time.
Four months was the amount of time my brother spent between diagnosed with
cancer and getting into remission in 1987. This season he wished he could
have gone to more events as an honoree before heading to Michigan. He talks
a great bowling game. On Saturday he ran his first marathon, and, like his
eldest brother, went out too fast only to crater the last 6 miles. He also
blames the heat.
I still can't believe that I have run two of these things - I wish I had
some better wisdom than the necessity of body glide and the importance of
thanking everyone who put me on the road.
To April, John, Mike, Jay and Timmy thanks for guidance.
To the captains and mentors it has been great to work with you.
To Kristi and John, thanks for being the glue.
I know the season is not over, but I thought I would say thanks before our
mailboxes get completely full.
My brother today instead of taking the day off to recover spent the morning
playing golf. Mark Twain called that "a good walk spoiled." I imagine given
his fondness for cigars he would say the same thing about marathons. All I
can respond is the proudest races I have ever run are the ones with team in
training.
Sunday, June 04, 2000
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
Howling at the Moon
Most of San Francisco lies in a grid. It lacks the topologically wandering avenues of Pittsburgh or Boston. Sure there is Lombard, but at either end of the crooked tourist magnet is pure grid. No, the real exception is Market Street, the cross-town traversal nightmare. It is the off-kilter divider of downtown, and its pedestrians share the slightly skewed view of the world.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax). The we-are-all-freezing-together attitude was a binding part of the experience at Dartmouth.
Perhaps the alcohol helped. There was one guy who I would always seem to stumble into at parties whether it be at scorpion bowls or recovering from the smells of AD. He would always insist that we go outside and howl at the moon. It was a great, nutty moment between two guys both somewhat frustrated at their attempts to seduce the opposite sex to shout a primal scream into a New Hampshire winter night. No one complained
Now I did run into David O’Brien outside of parties – I went to his Frost play during our summer term and a couple of meetings of “Students fighting hunger.” I would like to say that I was involved in charitable organizations more, but I tended to gravitate towards my studies and Ultimate Frisbee. Definitely drank quite a bit as well.
I graduated and made a promise to keep in touch. I found Dave’s humor and enthusiasm infectious. He wrote a long letter to me in grad school (my dark years) and I never had the time to write back or for that matter quite a few other good classmates. He was the sort of person that I had hoped to meet at a reunion – someone that no matter what had happened over the remaining years would just be happy. A few remarks about the chicken sandwiches at EBA’s and we would be back to our usual banter. I figured our tenth is coming up shortly and even though we celebrate twelve years out maybe I could track him down then.
Yesterday, I was cleaning up my desk when I ran into an old class newsletter. Normally I avoid these things – there is only so much of Jake’s nicknames, and finding out about marriages and kids that I generally want to know. In this one there was a page describing how there was a dinner honoring David. I was pretty excited and wanted to know what great thing he was up to. I found out that the award was being given posthumously.
It turns out that he did go on to do wonderful things. He was the Dartmouth volunteer coordinator and worked with CARE in South Sudan and Somalia. He went to India to study food distribution and caught a respiratory virus.
It hurts to lose one of the few people I know that would have spent time with the poet wearing Santa Clause hat. The guy with the streamers needs someone to believe in him. In my years since Dartmouth, I have spent far too much time drifting in the ebb and flow of start-ups. They have the duality of having everything being absolutely important right away, but no one remembering what went on three months ago.
The one major charitable thing that I do is Team in Training, an organization that uses marathons to fundraise for blood cancer research. It basically takes four months to prepare for a marathon. Tuesday mornings we have a buddy run that takes us from the marina to the golden gate bridge.
We are usually are at the middle of the bridge when the dawn breaks. This morning looking to the east, I could see the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street silhouetted by the rising sun. A new ball park is opening up around the corner, and the whole city seems to be coming alive to the possibilities of the up coming season.
Towards the west, the moon was starting to set. And for the first time in many years, I howled.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax). The we-are-all-freezing-together attitude was a binding part of the experience at Dartmouth.
Perhaps the alcohol helped. There was one guy who I would always seem to stumble into at parties whether it be at scorpion bowls or recovering from the smells of AD. He would always insist that we go outside and howl at the moon. It was a great, nutty moment between two guys both somewhat frustrated at their attempts to seduce the opposite sex to shout a primal scream into a New Hampshire winter night. No one complained
Now I did run into David O’Brien outside of parties – I went to his Frost play during our summer term and a couple of meetings of “Students fighting hunger.” I would like to say that I was involved in charitable organizations more, but I tended to gravitate towards my studies and Ultimate Frisbee. Definitely drank quite a bit as well.
I graduated and made a promise to keep in touch. I found Dave’s humor and enthusiasm infectious. He wrote a long letter to me in grad school (my dark years) and I never had the time to write back or for that matter quite a few other good classmates. He was the sort of person that I had hoped to meet at a reunion – someone that no matter what had happened over the remaining years would just be happy. A few remarks about the chicken sandwiches at EBA’s and we would be back to our usual banter. I figured our tenth is coming up shortly and even though we celebrate twelve years out maybe I could track him down then.
Yesterday, I was cleaning up my desk when I ran into an old class newsletter. Normally I avoid these things – there is only so much of Jake’s nicknames, and finding out about marriages and kids that I generally want to know. In this one there was a page describing how there was a dinner honoring David. I was pretty excited and wanted to know what great thing he was up to. I found out that the award was being given posthumously.
It turns out that he did go on to do wonderful things. He was the Dartmouth volunteer coordinator and worked with CARE in South Sudan and Somalia. He went to India to study food distribution and caught a respiratory virus.
It hurts to lose one of the few people I know that would have spent time with the poet wearing Santa Clause hat. The guy with the streamers needs someone to believe in him. In my years since Dartmouth, I have spent far too much time drifting in the ebb and flow of start-ups. They have the duality of having everything being absolutely important right away, but no one remembering what went on three months ago.
The one major charitable thing that I do is Team in Training, an organization that uses marathons to fundraise for blood cancer research. It basically takes four months to prepare for a marathon. Tuesday mornings we have a buddy run that takes us from the marina to the golden gate bridge.
We are usually are at the middle of the bridge when the dawn breaks. This morning looking to the east, I could see the Ferry Building at the end of Market Street silhouetted by the rising sun. A new ball park is opening up around the corner, and the whole city seems to be coming alive to the possibilities of the up coming season.
Towards the west, the moon was starting to set. And for the first time in many years, I howled.
Tuesday, March 14, 2000
City of Babble
Most of San Francisco lies in a grid. It lacks the topologically wandering avenues of Pittsburgh or Boston. Sure there is Lombard, but at either end of the crooked tourist magnet is pure grid. No, the real exception is Market Street, the cross-town traversal nightmare. It is the off-kilter divider of downtown, and its pedestrians share the slightly skewed view of the world.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax, and better roads around Boston) as was for that matter the A-team. And while our group lacks the insanity of Murdoch and perhaps the wisdom of Jefferson, we do wondrous things.
The research does make a difference. We do get people into the best shape of their lives. And on those days when it doesn't rain we have a great timedoing it.
For all of his boxing prowess, I am not sure if Mr. T. ever ran a marathon. Some how I don't see him working the water stops, or going over a fundraising letter with his mentor group. However, in the mid '90's he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. We run for him.
So when you cross market street on a buddy run or during the marathon, I hope you take a moment to appreciate the tilted nature of our city. I dovery much enjoy running with you folks.
But perhaps, I am just babbling.
There is a man who wears a Christmas hat year round and carries a sign offering poems for a price. Another has long streamers that flow out of his glasses, wears a trench coat, and tends to mumble to himself. And in that sense he isn't that much different than another special form of market street life - the cell phone shufflers.
The latest phones have a built in microphone and earpiece. Technology that was once reserved for the secret service to track interns around the White house now makes its users seem like they are conversing into the ether. They ramble past Stacey's bookstore and Wendy's talking very loudly about "B2B", "Open Source IPOs", and "e-pricing in web time." - word combinations that didn't exist when Michael Jordan was playing basketball and the hum was about "portals" and "push." Somebody important must have thought to start words with the letter "e" than "p". This has result that our tobacco billboards have been replaced by e-bay, e-trade, and e-toys. More addicting than nicotine is commerce.
Or perhaps it's the potential of commerce. Companies with no real idea of how they are going to make money are giving away stuff to other companies that also aren't making any money, but these deals cause more buzz and further financing. Layer after layer this city of babble is being built as the cash is being pumped across the north of Market Street to the south, orthogonal to the direction gold went 150 years ago, when the first wave of entrepreneurs reached the city.
So the question comes up as to why the guy on market street mumbling about "virtual servers" is going to be paid 30 million more than the guy trying to huck poems. That there is such a large gap between thestreet.com and "Street Sheet."
I think the difference is the guy with a cell phone has a community that believes in him. It is not only his contacts stored in a palm pilot - the investment bankers, the lawyers, the accountants, and the marketing research firm, but also a nation that has decided to throw the retirement dice into the NASDQ. If the idea was just his and his alone, it wouldn't get past the frighten tourists to whom he shouted leaving the Embarcadero. Even though we are spending a great deal of our time building a digital network, in the end the personal one is the one that became the most important.
The concept that a team joined together around a common belief can accomplish far more than the sum of its members is not a new one. Our country was founded in part on that concept (as well as lowering the stamp tax, and better roads around Boston) as was for that matter the A-team. And while our group lacks the insanity of Murdoch and perhaps the wisdom of Jefferson, we do wondrous things.
The research does make a difference. We do get people into the best shape of their lives. And on those days when it doesn't rain we have a great timedoing it.
For all of his boxing prowess, I am not sure if Mr. T. ever ran a marathon. Some how I don't see him working the water stops, or going over a fundraising letter with his mentor group. However, in the mid '90's he was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma. We run for him.
So when you cross market street on a buddy run or during the marathon, I hope you take a moment to appreciate the tilted nature of our city. I dovery much enjoy running with you folks.
But perhaps, I am just babbling.
Friday, January 28, 2000
Here we go again
There is a joke that winds up a little too often in my in-box that goes as follows.
One day after completing a long project for yet another pre IPO dot com company, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer programmer are driving home when all of a sudden the cars starts to spin out of control down a steep hill. Just before it is about to hit a large tree the car manages to skid off into a bush. Because the car has air bags the group is ok after they dust the broken glass.
The mechanical engineer turns to his two co-workers and says “the breaks must not have had enough fluids which cause the car to crash.”
The electrical engineer responds “No, I think there was a short in the drive system.”
The computer programmer shrugs “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
* * *
I am a computer programmer and look forward to being the Web captain for the following season. To me the fact that I can combine my love of hacking with the same group of people I run with is an honor and a joy.
Towards that end I have converted the running calendar to a Microsoft .pst file. If you use Outlook, you can import the file. It is also great if you later synch with a palm pilot.
I am also thinking about putting some fundraising letters on-line. If you have a copy of a fundraising letter, a follow-up letter, or a thank-you note that you could send me for distribution it would be fantastic. The more letters that the group can see the easier it would be for a novice to write a good one. Or at least a piece that doesn’t start with cheap joke.
When I got the introduction letter from Kristi, I was thinking about the three engineers spinning in a car together while frantically trying to prepare for the bottom of the hill. It must have been an intense, nervous, almost exhilarating few moments before the final bit. They were lucky to have each other to comfort and advise each other after the ordeal and will probably remember that one incident long after they have vested their stock and moved to Oregon.
I am a computer programmer and I love to run. Any day on the open road is a good day. Last season I snuck into the level three group under the guise that I had done approximately a marathon thirteen years earlier. I was pretty well humbled in Honolulu and afterwards spent some time trying to figure what I had learned.
The main thing I took away (other than I really need to stretch far more than I do) is that marathons are more of a life style than an event. The buddy runs and the brunches are better than the shells at the finish line. On any given day it might rain. But if you work at something a few times a week you would be surprised how far you can go.
So if you ask why I am going back to this thing after spending a week walking down stairs backwards, I will tell you “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
One day after completing a long project for yet another pre IPO dot com company, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a computer programmer are driving home when all of a sudden the cars starts to spin out of control down a steep hill. Just before it is about to hit a large tree the car manages to skid off into a bush. Because the car has air bags the group is ok after they dust the broken glass.
The mechanical engineer turns to his two co-workers and says “the breaks must not have had enough fluids which cause the car to crash.”
The electrical engineer responds “No, I think there was a short in the drive system.”
The computer programmer shrugs “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
* * *
I am a computer programmer and look forward to being the Web captain for the following season. To me the fact that I can combine my love of hacking with the same group of people I run with is an honor and a joy.
Towards that end I have converted the running calendar to a Microsoft .pst file. If you use Outlook, you can import the file. It is also great if you later synch with a palm pilot.
I am also thinking about putting some fundraising letters on-line. If you have a copy of a fundraising letter, a follow-up letter, or a thank-you note that you could send me for distribution it would be fantastic. The more letters that the group can see the easier it would be for a novice to write a good one. Or at least a piece that doesn’t start with cheap joke.
When I got the introduction letter from Kristi, I was thinking about the three engineers spinning in a car together while frantically trying to prepare for the bottom of the hill. It must have been an intense, nervous, almost exhilarating few moments before the final bit. They were lucky to have each other to comfort and advise each other after the ordeal and will probably remember that one incident long after they have vested their stock and moved to Oregon.
I am a computer programmer and I love to run. Any day on the open road is a good day. Last season I snuck into the level three group under the guise that I had done approximately a marathon thirteen years earlier. I was pretty well humbled in Honolulu and afterwards spent some time trying to figure what I had learned.
The main thing I took away (other than I really need to stretch far more than I do) is that marathons are more of a life style than an event. The buddy runs and the brunches are better than the shells at the finish line. On any given day it might rain. But if you work at something a few times a week you would be surprised how far you can go.
So if you ask why I am going back to this thing after spending a week walking down stairs backwards, I will tell you “I have no idea. Let’s try it again.”
Monday, December 20, 1999
Do you remember when we used to sing?
What ever happened to Sundays so slow?
There are two sides to hubris. The first is the wax that binds Icarus' wings; the belief that there are no limits to the human spirit or the bounds of the human body. It is a fickle glue.
Somewhere along a long, straight road spelt with the usual Hawaiian ratio of consonants to vowels, it melted. After four months of training, a week of hydrating, and a careful pace at the beginning of the marathon, I found myself stumbling slower and slower past the endless water and first aids stations. 8 miles left.
I guess I have been abusive as any on using running as a metaphor for life. But not many things in life are this painful. Few are voluntary. A marathon is a brutal brown-eyed monster. Hats off to anyone who can run them quickly.
Sometime in the aftermath I tried to figure out where I made a mistake - eating gummy bears with a frizzy hair woman on the plane over, trying to sleep when somebody was defacing Van Morrison and Buffet with a ukulele in the hotel lobby the night before, or being woken up by the Japanese jumping jack squad. Probably should have drank two waters instead of one at each stop - used chocolate power goo instead of cinnamon apple power bars.
There was also the weather. Most people go to the islands to wade in sun tan lotion and gulp mai tai's. The place has more macadamia nuts than health nuts.
The rain had started the night before sometime after ukulele guy closed with "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" and kept going for the first portion of the race. To the extent that it kept things cool it was a blessing, but the humidity was cranked up to heavy sautŽ. Although my cotton socks absorbed a small lake and the mass of roughly 30,000 people had to squirm around puddles, the real difficulty with the rain was that it drove home the point that it was a far better day to stay inside, drink mochas, and read one of the last Sunday morning Peanuts strip than to test the resilience of my knees.
But to blame things on the weather is like Icarus blaming the crash on sun spots. The damage was done because of arrogance.
There is a flip side of pride. It is part that gets you out on the road in the first place; it is the belief that you can stretch your limits; and it is the hope that there is something beyond the road.
It was time to down shift. Too tired to moan, I lowered my gait to a condemned man's shuffle, picked points on the horizon and tried to run through them. 8 miles including Diamondback hill. Note of caution: be careful of things named after poisonous snakes.
I had not lost all of my senses though. I still could notice the cheers of the Team in Training folk and the bubbly assurance of my running mentor. There is no better sound track.
I would like to thank those who helped with the last desperate miles and those that gave me the faith to be out there in the first place. To my mentor Corrina, a huge gold star. To the fellow runners, a well earned purple heart. To Coach April, a thanks for not pulling me off of the road at mile 24 even though I was in a different time zone. To Kristin and the other organizers of so many of our activities a huge smile.
The time spend this fall training on buddy runs, waking up early on Saturday mornings for the Coaches workout, and eating brunches afterwards to offset the calorie burn was one of the best times of my life.
I did finish and was asked by five different people whether I needed medical attention. ( I gather now that is not the same thing as being asked whether I want a t-shirt. ) I slowly healed myself by drinking bottled water and clutching a TNT tent rope.
In the end I feel I neither conquered nor surrendered a marathon. But there is valor in survival. As much as I enjoy the puka shells and pin from finishing the race, the real trophy was spending time with good people for a great cause.
My muscles are almost healed now and the blisters and chaffing will soon fade from memory. In that quiet time, I will decide whether I want to try once again at that brutal brown eyed beast.
There are two sides to hubris. The first is the wax that binds Icarus' wings; the belief that there are no limits to the human spirit or the bounds of the human body. It is a fickle glue.
Somewhere along a long, straight road spelt with the usual Hawaiian ratio of consonants to vowels, it melted. After four months of training, a week of hydrating, and a careful pace at the beginning of the marathon, I found myself stumbling slower and slower past the endless water and first aids stations. 8 miles left.
I guess I have been abusive as any on using running as a metaphor for life. But not many things in life are this painful. Few are voluntary. A marathon is a brutal brown-eyed monster. Hats off to anyone who can run them quickly.
Sometime in the aftermath I tried to figure out where I made a mistake - eating gummy bears with a frizzy hair woman on the plane over, trying to sleep when somebody was defacing Van Morrison and Buffet with a ukulele in the hotel lobby the night before, or being woken up by the Japanese jumping jack squad. Probably should have drank two waters instead of one at each stop - used chocolate power goo instead of cinnamon apple power bars.
There was also the weather. Most people go to the islands to wade in sun tan lotion and gulp mai tai's. The place has more macadamia nuts than health nuts.
The rain had started the night before sometime after ukulele guy closed with "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" and kept going for the first portion of the race. To the extent that it kept things cool it was a blessing, but the humidity was cranked up to heavy sautŽ. Although my cotton socks absorbed a small lake and the mass of roughly 30,000 people had to squirm around puddles, the real difficulty with the rain was that it drove home the point that it was a far better day to stay inside, drink mochas, and read one of the last Sunday morning Peanuts strip than to test the resilience of my knees.
But to blame things on the weather is like Icarus blaming the crash on sun spots. The damage was done because of arrogance.
There is a flip side of pride. It is part that gets you out on the road in the first place; it is the belief that you can stretch your limits; and it is the hope that there is something beyond the road.
It was time to down shift. Too tired to moan, I lowered my gait to a condemned man's shuffle, picked points on the horizon and tried to run through them. 8 miles including Diamondback hill. Note of caution: be careful of things named after poisonous snakes.
I had not lost all of my senses though. I still could notice the cheers of the Team in Training folk and the bubbly assurance of my running mentor. There is no better sound track.
I would like to thank those who helped with the last desperate miles and those that gave me the faith to be out there in the first place. To my mentor Corrina, a huge gold star. To the fellow runners, a well earned purple heart. To Coach April, a thanks for not pulling me off of the road at mile 24 even though I was in a different time zone. To Kristin and the other organizers of so many of our activities a huge smile.
The time spend this fall training on buddy runs, waking up early on Saturday mornings for the Coaches workout, and eating brunches afterwards to offset the calorie burn was one of the best times of my life.
I did finish and was asked by five different people whether I needed medical attention. ( I gather now that is not the same thing as being asked whether I want a t-shirt. ) I slowly healed myself by drinking bottled water and clutching a TNT tent rope.
In the end I feel I neither conquered nor surrendered a marathon. But there is valor in survival. As much as I enjoy the puka shells and pin from finishing the race, the real trophy was spending time with good people for a great cause.
My muscles are almost healed now and the blisters and chaffing will soon fade from memory. In that quiet time, I will decide whether I want to try once again at that brutal brown eyed beast.
Wednesday, July 21, 1999
Start up 2.0
Summer is the smaller of San Francisco’s two seasons of winter, and for the umpteenth Sunday in a row I bought a mocha to battle the fog. There are caffeine ATM’s every few stores – starbuck interludes between overpriced furniture shops, double malt liquor stores, and remainder bookstores.
Usually the fog doesn’t make it down the peninsula to San Mateo where I work – in summers my father as a child used to travel there to escape the cold city. As a kid I would go to Cape Cod and visit my cousins on my mom’s side, but this summer with a new job in yet another start-up means no summer trip.
The job itself has a strange sense of stability. In my previous three jobs after four months my first boss would be on the verge of quitting as the company would be about to make (or was recovering from) a near fatal business mistake. In such places you only see the rocks in the road instead of routes around them.
I carry the employment at will caution with me. Thrice scorned, I don’t think that any job can be the one, but I don’t mind traveling with less angst. The side effects are that I don’t write as much but exercise more. I enjoy taking a class on Java, but don’t have anecdotes explaining messed up deals with the Peoples Liberation Army or missing time sheets from Brazil.
Now there are little nits of the place: “Build your own desk” day seemed neat in concept, until it was pointed out that the prisoners in Gulag Archipelago did the same thing. 24-hour service means that I carry a luggable cell phone on Sundays. Some weeks I must scrub through scarcely commented code in Access 2.0 to support some cranky legacy client and start to think that it is bad in the same way as running into an ex while slightly drunk is. But in comparison to worrying about career pivots and resume objective statements, these are small.
Small like the fact that the new air conditioning unit at work hasn’t been set up properly. There is a constant trade wind blowing down my cubicle that grows stronger as it gets hotter. I wind up wearing the same North Face wardrobe I use during the weekends and evenings in the city. At first my boss did not quite get my wander-from-the-north fashion, but after a few visits to check up on me and the code he realizes that “yes it is really cold here.” I smile and nod happily knowing that my current difficulty can be solved merely by a sweater and a touch of understanding.
Usually the fog doesn’t make it down the peninsula to San Mateo where I work – in summers my father as a child used to travel there to escape the cold city. As a kid I would go to Cape Cod and visit my cousins on my mom’s side, but this summer with a new job in yet another start-up means no summer trip.
The job itself has a strange sense of stability. In my previous three jobs after four months my first boss would be on the verge of quitting as the company would be about to make (or was recovering from) a near fatal business mistake. In such places you only see the rocks in the road instead of routes around them.
I carry the employment at will caution with me. Thrice scorned, I don’t think that any job can be the one, but I don’t mind traveling with less angst. The side effects are that I don’t write as much but exercise more. I enjoy taking a class on Java, but don’t have anecdotes explaining messed up deals with the Peoples Liberation Army or missing time sheets from Brazil.
Now there are little nits of the place: “Build your own desk” day seemed neat in concept, until it was pointed out that the prisoners in Gulag Archipelago did the same thing. 24-hour service means that I carry a luggable cell phone on Sundays. Some weeks I must scrub through scarcely commented code in Access 2.0 to support some cranky legacy client and start to think that it is bad in the same way as running into an ex while slightly drunk is. But in comparison to worrying about career pivots and resume objective statements, these are small.
Small like the fact that the new air conditioning unit at work hasn’t been set up properly. There is a constant trade wind blowing down my cubicle that grows stronger as it gets hotter. I wind up wearing the same North Face wardrobe I use during the weekends and evenings in the city. At first my boss did not quite get my wander-from-the-north fashion, but after a few visits to check up on me and the code he realizes that “yes it is really cold here.” I smile and nod happily knowing that my current difficulty can be solved merely by a sweater and a touch of understanding.
Saturday, November 21, 1998
Aussie Rules
The night before and for most of the morning it rained. I hadn’t set up my dome tent correctly, and I woke up to find most of clothes floating in a puddle. I was sleeping on top of an air mattress, and hadn’t noticed the rain seeping in. I soon went to huddle underneath the large tarp our guides had set up. The rest of our sea kayak campers joined us - a pair of bay area travel agents, a volleyball couple from Boston
We waited for the rain to stop. We had camped for two nights on an uninhabited island four miles off of theshore of Northern Australia
But soon our boat was last, a kilometer behind everyone else - the boat the guides moan about afterwards in the pub when they are sucking their XXXX beer and reminiscing aboutAustralia versus England
A month before I had a career hiccup and decided to go on a break after a good dinner and a Johnny Cash album failed to cheer me up. Normally I listen to alternative rock but I had had too much of thirty-one flavors and then some. I needed a change.
After using the Internet as a way of spinning the globe and sticking a pin in it (search = English speaking, warm, end of November)Australia
It is a fierce place - a home of sharks, 30 proof sun block, pythons, strangler fig, and drivers on the other side of the road. And then there were the stickers and blood suckers: the lawyer cane vine, the elephant ear plant, the stinging jelly fish, and, of course, the leeches. The trip was broken up into five parts - canoeing, biking, backpacking, scuba, and the sea kayak. When the pamphlet came for what to bring for the 8-mile backpack into the rainforest (the politically correct for jungle - no one is for jungle) it mentioned insect repellent somewhere between a water bottle, a good pair of socks, and a good hat. It didn’t say that the spray was for leeches.
These leeches are smaller than theHollywood variety - a half inch long and pencil lead thin, but quicker. They move like inchworms, head to toe, always creeping towards heat. They avoid the zones of toxic levels, and quickly find the barren sections of skin. We flicked them off (no salt, cigarette, or Humphrey Bogart needed) but we had to be careful not to bombard our fellow hikers. Two of them clung to my hands after a miss-flick and nibbled gently at my palms. By the end of the trip I had had about twenty of these on me with about a half a dozen successfully drip drying me of A positive blood. This year I not only tried to save the rainforest, I also fed it.
It did take a day to get over the leach search breaks - you get strange dreams at night after spending a day with these worms. Eventually I came to the conclusion that leeches are like mosquitoes that apologize with
anaesthetic before the bite. All things considered I would much rather have blood-letting leeches than skin crunching mosquitoes (but this is the type of decision I am not really looking for in my little career search).
Now there was also beauty on the trip: sleeping in a hammock next to a waterfall, watching the sun set over a coral beach, hovering above a sea turtle or a giant clam in the Great Barrier Reef, discovering what looked like a branch of a tree was really a bird, stopping at a strangler fig that floated down from the rainforest canopy like a curtain, and eating fresh pineapple that had been carved into a boat or the fresh fruits (tucker) that our guide picked for us in the rain forest.
There was the shame of the feral things that had been brought to the island - the gigantic raging cane toad, the root digging pigs, and the TV show,South Park America
There were the storms. On the second day of the trip (the first day of biking, the day after the canoe) after we biked around what felt like a mostly uphill Atherton tablelands, we stopped atLake Eachem
It was a machine gun downpour. The rain hit like an over caffeinated masseuse. InCalifornia this weather would cause land slides, national guard movement, and a long afternoon for a marketing department spin control ("I think we should call it something like el tiburon"); in Australia
We rode on. The rain slapped into the forest causing the leaves and dust to fall onto the road. Pretty soon there were small branches coming down and we were forced to zig zag around the mounting debris. The rain kept pounding. Up ahead the cars had stopped and were starting to back up the street. A tree had fallen across the road. We flung our bikes over the tree and continued into the storm.
More branches. Bigger branches. And then the realization that a tree is a fairly large object. This was not an automatedDisney Land
The third tree that fell was the smallest. Our guide motioned us out of the forest - he would take care of the last tree and we were close to the exit and the main road. Only a few minutes latter we were out of the forest. The rain still pounded the rest of the way home, and it was impossible to see much of the traffic on the road. But we knew that the
tough part was done and a pub was within reach.
Most of the time, we deal with small problems - the hobgoblins of daily commutes, status reports, and under-budgeted projects. I believe the great vacations are the ones that the at-home issues get flung away - that you really do only take the four tee shirts, water bottle, a good pair of socks, a wide brim hat and, of course, insect repellent; and leave the did-I-turn-that-report-in worries behind. If you have to clean out a backpack because you have spilt meat sauce all over it and are worried about the marsupial equivalent of big city rat will perforate most of your remaining underwear as a snack when it is dark out and the leeches are still moving, you will forget about how you babble too much at interviews and the general career angst that awaits you back home. Cherish these moments as you scrub. In the rain pedal forward squinting and listen for the crackling on the sides of the roads.
My partner in the sea kayak righted herself and cleaned her mouth out with the last of the water in her water bottle. My right shoulder started to feel better and I was able to do the deeper paddles and catch up to the group. Shortly we turned to our right so that the rest of the trip was with the surf and wind. We pulled the boats back up on shore,
and I smiled at the troubled sea.
We waited for the rain to stop. We had camped for two nights on an uninhabited island four miles off of the
But soon our boat was last, a kilometer behind everyone else - the boat the guides moan about afterwards in the pub when they are sucking their XXXX beer and reminiscing about
A month before I had a career hiccup and decided to go on a break after a good dinner and a Johnny Cash album failed to cheer me up. Normally I listen to alternative rock but I had had too much of thirty-one flavors and then some. I needed a change.
After using the Internet as a way of spinning the globe and sticking a pin in it (search = English speaking, warm, end of November)
It is a fierce place - a home of sharks, 30 proof sun block, pythons, strangler fig, and drivers on the other side of the road. And then there were the stickers and blood suckers: the lawyer cane vine, the elephant ear plant, the stinging jelly fish, and, of course, the leeches. The trip was broken up into five parts - canoeing, biking, backpacking, scuba, and the sea kayak. When the pamphlet came for what to bring for the 8-mile backpack into the rainforest (the politically correct for jungle - no one is for jungle) it mentioned insect repellent somewhere between a water bottle, a good pair of socks, and a good hat. It didn’t say that the spray was for leeches.
These leeches are smaller than the
It did take a day to get over the leach search breaks - you get strange dreams at night after spending a day with these worms. Eventually I came to the conclusion that leeches are like mosquitoes that apologize with
anaesthetic before the bite. All things considered I would much rather have blood-letting leeches than skin crunching mosquitoes (but this is the type of decision I am not really looking for in my little career search).
Now there was also beauty on the trip: sleeping in a hammock next to a waterfall, watching the sun set over a coral beach, hovering above a sea turtle or a giant clam in the Great Barrier Reef, discovering what looked like a branch of a tree was really a bird, stopping at a strangler fig that floated down from the rainforest canopy like a curtain, and eating fresh pineapple that had been carved into a boat or the fresh fruits (tucker) that our guide picked for us in the rain forest.
There was the shame of the feral things that had been brought to the island - the gigantic raging cane toad, the root digging pigs, and the TV show,
There were the storms. On the second day of the trip (the first day of biking, the day after the canoe) after we biked around what felt like a mostly uphill Atherton tablelands, we stopped at
It was a machine gun downpour. The rain hit like an over caffeinated masseuse. In
We rode on. The rain slapped into the forest causing the leaves and dust to fall onto the road. Pretty soon there were small branches coming down and we were forced to zig zag around the mounting debris. The rain kept pounding. Up ahead the cars had stopped and were starting to back up the street. A tree had fallen across the road. We flung our bikes over the tree and continued into the storm.
More branches. Bigger branches. And then the realization that a tree is a fairly large object. This was not an automated
The third tree that fell was the smallest. Our guide motioned us out of the forest - he would take care of the last tree and we were close to the exit and the main road. Only a few minutes latter we were out of the forest. The rain still pounded the rest of the way home, and it was impossible to see much of the traffic on the road. But we knew that the
tough part was done and a pub was within reach.
Most of the time, we deal with small problems - the hobgoblins of daily commutes, status reports, and under-budgeted projects. I believe the great vacations are the ones that the at-home issues get flung away - that you really do only take the four tee shirts, water bottle, a good pair of socks, a wide brim hat and, of course, insect repellent; and leave the did-I-turn-that-report-in worries behind. If you have to clean out a backpack because you have spilt meat sauce all over it and are worried about the marsupial equivalent of big city rat will perforate most of your remaining underwear as a snack when it is dark out and the leeches are still moving, you will forget about how you babble too much at interviews and the general career angst that awaits you back home. Cherish these moments as you scrub. In the rain pedal forward squinting and listen for the crackling on the sides of the roads.
My partner in the sea kayak righted herself and cleaned her mouth out with the last of the water in her water bottle. My right shoulder started to feel better and I was able to do the deeper paddles and catch up to the group. Shortly we turned to our right so that the rest of the trip was with the surf and wind. We pulled the boats back up on shore,
and I smiled at the troubled sea.
Tuesday, July 21, 1998
EdGinny
It was a little strange actually seeing the rock. Carefully chosen to be impressive but not too large and then shipped out of state to avoid sales tax, the diamond engagement ring clung to my youngest brother's fiancée finger and sparkled through out our family dinner like blissful punctuation marks in a cheery and slightly bewildered conversation. He was actually going to get married.
It wasn't really a surprise - they have been dating for four years and have just moved into together (probably to find out whether they were compatible in the deepest sense - hygiene). She is the metronome in my brother's crashing about world; a steady beat of reason and patience; the one who returns voicemail messages and sends thank you notes (I have long since eliminated the middle man and have phoned her directly when I want to schedule my brother's time).
And there we were the six of us in a French restaurant that was still recovering from the World Cup and Bastille Day complete with a waitress who muttered to herself about getting hazard pay for the last week "worse than New Year's. Much worse than New Year's." Six (mom, dad, George, me, and the couple) trying to get used to the concept of a family and going about it in our usual way - making fun of other family members and long monologues about one's own career.
George's video empire is doing well. I am breaking in a new boss - the getting up to speed is never easy since I think we have developed our own little language with words like GSM, ISD, ITD, Gary, and BVI which can be strung together in any arbitrary combination.
Outside of work for the most part, I keep rummaging through hobbies - piano, pottery, swing dancing, jogging, and tomato plant growing (well technically killing). I know that my random piano music (politely called experimental) and large banana slug model (complete with two smaller slugs) are not going to make it into a museum, but they bring me unconditional joy. It is the pride that I actually built something; it is the amazement that I can created something new; that I have created a new noun.
Perhaps that is what the rock is about. That Edward and Ginny will build something special together. That they have formed the new noun: EdGinny - two names never really to be separated. And as the six of us sat there eating the ahi with leeks or chicken in a mushroom sauce, and sipping Anchor Steam or Irish Whiskey, we knew that this new creation was good.
Saturday, March 21, 1998
Time Going Bye
There is a bar in Hangzhou where the ex patriots hang out called Casablanca. Most of the ex pats have left the scalding heat of an Asian summer and on Friday night the bar was filled with almost entirely of locals sipping pints of Guinness that were far too thin to have been brewed in England. A pretty good band was playing and it was quite a site watching this crowd sing "Country Road, West Virginia."
The next day after a morning meeting to discuss our company wide MRP system, I went to airport to catch a flight back to Hong Kong. This trip is moving into its third week, and though still fascinating it is a bit like watching some one do the same magic trick a second time.
No one was manning the quarantine at the airport and I slipped by and went into the customs waiting area. There was tall brunette woman reading a pink book which I would later found out was titled "The Psychology of Stress Management". She wore a pair of white slacks and a wrap-around blouse that left her belly button exposed as if to make an anti "I Dream of Jeanie" statement.
The military officers motioned us through the assorted luggage zappers into the main terminal. I went through first and took a seat in the large terminal. A few minutes later the brunette came in and took a seat directly across from me. After an awkward half an hour of eyeing one another we finally started to talk. She was British and was working with some of the silk factories as a fashion designer. After a while we discovered that we did have a few things in common such as a preference for using forks and agreement that the real growth industries in China were bicycle repair shops and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They started the boarding process which broke up our conversation. We were headed up the mobile stairs to the plane, when a military man came rushing after us telling us to stop boarding. We asked why and he informed us that there was a typhoon coming and that we would have to spend a night in a hotel in Hangzhou.
I was convinced that this could have been the best natural disaster ever.
Now the rest of the story isn't about candle light evening with rain pounding at the windows. The only heat that night came from the long Asian summer; the only ones who knew magic were two road show engineers specializing in projecting lasers using a combination of smoke and mirrors and who joined us at the dinner table. Life unfortunately isn't fiction. Sometimes a conversation is just a conversation - a sigh is just a sigh.
The next day after a morning meeting to discuss our company wide MRP system, I went to airport to catch a flight back to Hong Kong. This trip is moving into its third week, and though still fascinating it is a bit like watching some one do the same magic trick a second time.
No one was manning the quarantine at the airport and I slipped by and went into the customs waiting area. There was tall brunette woman reading a pink book which I would later found out was titled "The Psychology of Stress Management". She wore a pair of white slacks and a wrap-around blouse that left her belly button exposed as if to make an anti "I Dream of Jeanie" statement.
The military officers motioned us through the assorted luggage zappers into the main terminal. I went through first and took a seat in the large terminal. A few minutes later the brunette came in and took a seat directly across from me. After an awkward half an hour of eyeing one another we finally started to talk. She was British and was working with some of the silk factories as a fashion designer. After a while we discovered that we did have a few things in common such as a preference for using forks and agreement that the real growth industries in China were bicycle repair shops and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
They started the boarding process which broke up our conversation. We were headed up the mobile stairs to the plane, when a military man came rushing after us telling us to stop boarding. We asked why and he informed us that there was a typhoon coming and that we would have to spend a night in a hotel in Hangzhou.
I was convinced that this could have been the best natural disaster ever.
Now the rest of the story isn't about candle light evening with rain pounding at the windows. The only heat that night came from the long Asian summer; the only ones who knew magic were two road show engineers specializing in projecting lasers using a combination of smoke and mirrors and who joined us at the dinner table. Life unfortunately isn't fiction. Sometimes a conversation is just a conversation - a sigh is just a sigh.
Thursday, November 20, 1997
Wish List
I have already made up my mind what I really want for Christmas. I know it’s a little early and I have not seen the claymation specials telling me the true meaning of the holiday with snappy tunes from the fifties. Cold Miser has hit the Bay Area; the rain finally scrubbed away the last warmth of El Nino. I leave work in darkness and meander my way home through streets still not reconstructed from the earthquake.
My work is also being cleansed. At the start of October I was working a multi -gazillion dollar deal in Hong Kong. I am now hibernating in a cubicle - my chances of future travel are dripping away and I am left with the paperwork of consequences. My company is going through seasonal changes, a reshuffling of the corporate deck. In the end I feel that I have the job security of Sherazade - along as I can keep spinning the tales of financial intrigue, the king will not kill me today. A couple of people so far have not been so lucky. I know that this down phase will pass in six months until the next king arrives and just maybe I get to repeat some of my greatest hits.
Still those deal making moments, chatting up with merger specialists - the corporate anesthesiologists, dim sum at two in the morning, the long looks and head shakes, the winks and hand shakes - all of them were brief highs of capitalism adrenaline. It is a little tough to go cold turkey.
So my Christmas wish is for smaller victories - for the patience to keep trying to use my norditrack, for the parking spot close to the door but not under the tree, for warm laughter at meetings, a smile from girl behind the counter when I order a mocha grande decaf, for a long kiss during a slow dance that says just once after the music stops there will still be remnants of possibilities. These brief flickers of hope, fleeting moments of triumph are ultimately what lets us survive storms.
Yesterday as I drove to work the rain behind me had stopped and I could see a rainbow in my rearview mirror right above "some objects larger than they appear." It was a splendid Kermit's monument for the faithful - the lovers, the dreamers and me. Later that day, I did not get the good parking spot nor even a small peck from a nice date who I think enjoyed her butter fish entree a little more than the conversation. But I still have few shopping days left.
My work is also being cleansed. At the start of October I was working a multi -gazillion dollar deal in Hong Kong. I am now hibernating in a cubicle - my chances of future travel are dripping away and I am left with the paperwork of consequences. My company is going through seasonal changes, a reshuffling of the corporate deck. In the end I feel that I have the job security of Sherazade - along as I can keep spinning the tales of financial intrigue, the king will not kill me today. A couple of people so far have not been so lucky. I know that this down phase will pass in six months until the next king arrives and just maybe I get to repeat some of my greatest hits.
Still those deal making moments, chatting up with merger specialists - the corporate anesthesiologists, dim sum at two in the morning, the long looks and head shakes, the winks and hand shakes - all of them were brief highs of capitalism adrenaline. It is a little tough to go cold turkey.
So my Christmas wish is for smaller victories - for the patience to keep trying to use my norditrack, for the parking spot close to the door but not under the tree, for warm laughter at meetings, a smile from girl behind the counter when I order a mocha grande decaf, for a long kiss during a slow dance that says just once after the music stops there will still be remnants of possibilities. These brief flickers of hope, fleeting moments of triumph are ultimately what lets us survive storms.
Yesterday as I drove to work the rain behind me had stopped and I could see a rainbow in my rearview mirror right above "some objects larger than they appear." It was a splendid Kermit's monument for the faithful - the lovers, the dreamers and me. Later that day, I did not get the good parking spot nor even a small peck from a nice date who I think enjoyed her butter fish entree a little more than the conversation. But I still have few shopping days left.
Sunday, September 21, 1997
Themes and Variations
My improv class ended a few weeks ago, and I am now attending a Saturday afternoon workshop perhaps mostly because that there is a very cute blond women that I have a inkling for (I am not the world's most passionate guy - I think I am too old for crushes, but too young for total apathy). Forty or so people show up for these things, and there is a break in the middle in which we mingle and chat about pennant races and quality burritos.
Unfortunately on this Saturday Tara, the funny blond Cornell graduate in the aforementioned inkling, was already surrounded by a pack of testosterone vultures. I always feel stupid in these situations - it is as if I am playing bachelor number three and the other two guys have picked the cool ice creams answers to the question and all I am left with is "vanilla."
With shoelaces in the usual somewhat untied fashion I stumbled towards Tara but as I get closer I overheard her mention something about her boyfriend. I figured that this was a good time to come up with another strategy. I have 11 months until I smack into that 30's barrier and I think it is time to lower my standards.
I noticed that there was a guy talking to this somewhat-but-not-really-very attractive women. I decide to sneak into this conversation. The three of us get to talking. Her name was Berta not Roberta and she had only tried doing improv for a few months. The guy, a future Hollywood star but now a waiter at Chevy's, was rapping quite well with her about coffee shops in San Francisco and the importance of the San Francisco Chronicle's little man theater reviews. About three minutes into the discussion she turns to him and says "Of course you realize that I am a transvestite."
This is what I call a conversation stopper.
I really don't know if my life has some weird built up karma - that it is supposed to have a soundtrack by the Kinks (the flip side is that he might not have told and I would have wound up in the Crying Game). For the second time in four months I have run across a trans something or other. The first being my sophomore neighbor from boarding school at our reunion. I think twice in a summer time is a fairly bizarre theme.
I mean what ever happened to the WYSIWYG interface? Shouldn't Microsoft release a product like Dating 97? Aren't there protocols out there? Is it really supposed to be this tough? (There is also a strange disappointment about the transvestite liking the other guy more.)
Anyway next week I am going back being one of the many vultures around Tara, the blond with the main feature of not being a trans-something. And when that ice cream question of love gets to my turn I am saying "Rocky Road."
Unfortunately on this Saturday Tara, the funny blond Cornell graduate in the aforementioned inkling, was already surrounded by a pack of testosterone vultures. I always feel stupid in these situations - it is as if I am playing bachelor number three and the other two guys have picked the cool ice creams answers to the question and all I am left with is "vanilla."
With shoelaces in the usual somewhat untied fashion I stumbled towards Tara but as I get closer I overheard her mention something about her boyfriend. I figured that this was a good time to come up with another strategy. I have 11 months until I smack into that 30's barrier and I think it is time to lower my standards.
I noticed that there was a guy talking to this somewhat-but-not-really-very attractive women. I decide to sneak into this conversation. The three of us get to talking. Her name was Berta not Roberta and she had only tried doing improv for a few months. The guy, a future Hollywood star but now a waiter at Chevy's, was rapping quite well with her about coffee shops in San Francisco and the importance of the San Francisco Chronicle's little man theater reviews. About three minutes into the discussion she turns to him and says "Of course you realize that I am a transvestite."
This is what I call a conversation stopper.
I really don't know if my life has some weird built up karma - that it is supposed to have a soundtrack by the Kinks (the flip side is that he might not have told and I would have wound up in the Crying Game). For the second time in four months I have run across a trans something or other. The first being my sophomore neighbor from boarding school at our reunion. I think twice in a summer time is a fairly bizarre theme.
I mean what ever happened to the WYSIWYG interface? Shouldn't Microsoft release a product like Dating 97? Aren't there protocols out there? Is it really supposed to be this tough? (There is also a strange disappointment about the transvestite liking the other guy more.)
Anyway next week I am going back being one of the many vultures around Tara, the blond with the main feature of not being a trans-something. And when that ice cream question of love gets to my turn I am saying "Rocky Road."
Thursday, August 21, 1997
Reflections in August
Every August my family (the extended one that includes cousins, aunts, uncles - the people who Christmas cards are grouped together on the mantle) returns to Woods Hole, a town at the base of Cape Cod known for oceanography and ferry rides to Martha's Vineyard. For my first 23 years I would always make the trek whether it be a long weekend from Dartmouth's summer session to an entire month break right before the back to school deals started appearing and hastily read book reports needed to be completed. But for the last six years I haven't been able to make it. My summers have been causalities to grad school, weddings, and the perpetual hobgoblins of work. Last weekend I returned.
It seemed … well uh … smaller. The driveway whose cracks we used as starting points for our "big wheel" races wasn't the steep terror of doom. The paths through the bushes around the tennis court weren't the complex labyrinths for "Kick the Can" or "Capture the Flag". The porch that clings to the side of the house wasn't the endless boardwalk of my memories. Raiding the cookie cabinet did not require getting a chair and having two brothers posted for look out duty.
Not to say that the place was small. The Lower House (there are two) was built in three sections and is covered in Cape Cod gray shingles. It was originally an inn for mariners, but the many years of New England salt air have warped the hallways that link the small rooms. The place creeks and moans when foot steps scamper through its halls back from the journey across two sections to the lone shower for the "boys" (male cousins out number female 8 to 3). It sits atop a grassy hill that cascades to the sea. Hurricanes have eaten into the coast and devoured the rocky pier, but there is still plenty of space for my cousins to hit golf balls into a hula-hoop.
There is always competition. Tennis games of my youth were not settled by score, but by who would fling their racket at their partner first. There were intense matches of card games from "Down the tubes", and "Oh Hell", to the back breaking "Hearts". This year a couple of cousins decided that we would have an Olympics by dividing us into three teams and having us compete in running, swimming, basketball free throws, shooting at coke cans, golf using a tennis ball, round the world version of tennis, and a concluding water balloon toss which disintegrated into an all out war. Although my team, the Lobsters, did not fare as well as the others I was sure that Ginny was well armed with balloons to go after her fiancé, my brother.
Sunday was the Falmouth Foot race, which goes past our driveway and continues seven miles along the coast and winds up near a Dairy Cream (which undoes whatever calories the race burned of). Each of the cousins wore a bright yellow team Gunny jersey (perhaps some sort of Tour de France thing) and sneaked in the race after the Kenyan blur had passed, but before too many people wearing "I love Budweiser" shirts had stumbled through. I finished towards the end but ahead of my two 6'4'' teenage cousins who have not yet figured out how to run at that height.
I have been running more recently. I am now up to doing 7.7 miles four times a week. Granted these are nine and half-minute miles, which is like being a Zen master of second gear. But I have gotten to the point past being out of breath where I can arrive to work in a sea of endorphins.
It is a long way from my seven-minute miles that I could run forever in high school. I feel that I have become the guy on the side of the road who the younger me briefly glances at before he strides on by. I know that I run not only in part to catch him (another part is that I got a little too successful at stealing cookies), but to keep an honest pace. Because further back the road there is an older me trying to catch up.
It seemed … well uh … smaller. The driveway whose cracks we used as starting points for our "big wheel" races wasn't the steep terror of doom. The paths through the bushes around the tennis court weren't the complex labyrinths for "Kick the Can" or "Capture the Flag". The porch that clings to the side of the house wasn't the endless boardwalk of my memories. Raiding the cookie cabinet did not require getting a chair and having two brothers posted for look out duty.
Not to say that the place was small. The Lower House (there are two) was built in three sections and is covered in Cape Cod gray shingles. It was originally an inn for mariners, but the many years of New England salt air have warped the hallways that link the small rooms. The place creeks and moans when foot steps scamper through its halls back from the journey across two sections to the lone shower for the "boys" (male cousins out number female 8 to 3). It sits atop a grassy hill that cascades to the sea. Hurricanes have eaten into the coast and devoured the rocky pier, but there is still plenty of space for my cousins to hit golf balls into a hula-hoop.
There is always competition. Tennis games of my youth were not settled by score, but by who would fling their racket at their partner first. There were intense matches of card games from "Down the tubes", and "Oh Hell", to the back breaking "Hearts". This year a couple of cousins decided that we would have an Olympics by dividing us into three teams and having us compete in running, swimming, basketball free throws, shooting at coke cans, golf using a tennis ball, round the world version of tennis, and a concluding water balloon toss which disintegrated into an all out war. Although my team, the Lobsters, did not fare as well as the others I was sure that Ginny was well armed with balloons to go after her fiancé, my brother.
Sunday was the Falmouth Foot race, which goes past our driveway and continues seven miles along the coast and winds up near a Dairy Cream (which undoes whatever calories the race burned of). Each of the cousins wore a bright yellow team Gunny jersey (perhaps some sort of Tour de France thing) and sneaked in the race after the Kenyan blur had passed, but before too many people wearing "I love Budweiser" shirts had stumbled through. I finished towards the end but ahead of my two 6'4'' teenage cousins who have not yet figured out how to run at that height.
I have been running more recently. I am now up to doing 7.7 miles four times a week. Granted these are nine and half-minute miles, which is like being a Zen master of second gear. But I have gotten to the point past being out of breath where I can arrive to work in a sea of endorphins.
It is a long way from my seven-minute miles that I could run forever in high school. I feel that I have become the guy on the side of the road who the younger me briefly glances at before he strides on by. I know that I run not only in part to catch him (another part is that I got a little too successful at stealing cookies), but to keep an honest pace. Because further back the road there is an older me trying to catch up.
Saturday, June 21, 1997
Side Routes
There is no non stop between Hangzhou and San Francisco - you either go to Hong Kong or the Shanghai to Tokyo and then SF. Twelve hours of flying, but only two movies not including the animated fasten your seat-belt videos which I think had the same cast as Gobots (I kept waiting for Ultra Man to jump out when the overhead oxygen supply fell). I did the Shanghai route which meant I spent the night in Shanghai and then flew out the next morning. The hotel which was booked here in California was across the street from the baggage claim. I made my way there despite a Chinese roper who was determined to get me to his hotel at a much better price.
As I checked in and went to my room on the third floor, I noticed that there was a bar at the end of the hall. A little tired from my trip I went to the bar for a good night drink. The staff quickly sat me down in a booth. A waitress came into the booth lit a candle and looked up at me from waist level"
"Do you want something to drink?"
I quickly looked at the drink menu and feeling a little patriotic ( or possible to get rid of the smelly tofu, a food that violates some primal taboo) I said "I will have a Budweiser".
The waitress smiled and then asked the second question "Do you want a girl?"
Now this was a little tougher question. I know my company has a lousy 401k program, but I did not think this was part of the overall compensation plan. I was not really in a hurry to join the viral frequent flyer club. I said "no."
I did finish my beer in the place and was impressed with its mood. I could see a little into other booths where business men had two girls a piece. Cigarette smoke poured over the top of the paper walled booths and sank into the carpet. A Mandarin version of "House of the Rising Sun." played on the stereo. It was hypnotic. After settling up for my beer I went down the hall smiling, and wondering about the house in New Orleans.
When I told a few people after I got back to San Francisco, they mentioned that I should have at least gotten a price check. Asked about group rates. Dollars to RMB currency conversion. Perhaps it was a moment that I will look back to and pause. But that was the point of the following weekend.
After getting back to San Francisco and spending just enough time to mess with my body clock, I got on a plane to Philadelphia for the wedding of a girl who got away. Equal parts plump and perky, she was a fellow intern at Bellcore specializing in the psychology of user interfaces. At her heart she is a conversational babbler (a property I also hold) which follows the principle that if you say enough eventual you will stumble into the truth.
I blew it.
That hot New Jersey summer she was dating a cartoonist who she left behind at Carleton. I didn't feel that I should have made my "move" which usually comes across as slightly less subtle than the inflated male frigate bird. There is a point when looking back at the horizon where nobility collides with stupidity.
Halfway through that summer, she struck a conversation with some one waiting for the bus. A graduate student a Rutgers specializing in molecular biology. He was on the periphery - only occasionally joining the intern pack for important discussions on whether "Batman" was a better movie than "Dick Tracy" - nowhere to be seen into our trips to Harlem and the Jersey shore.
The summer eventually ended. She went back to the cartoonist. I went to New Hampshire. The cartoonist wanted to draw someone else. The grad student didn't like grad school and went to Minnesota (where she was) to probably get as far as away from mitochondria as he could. It was their wedding.
There were five interns in our mini group, but she was the only one with whom I have kept in touch. As a group we all tried to guess where we would be in ten years - the cotton candy dreams of youth. So many possibilities. I was going to be a work-a-holic computer programmer. She was not going to get married until she was 35.
The wedding lasted an hour. The reception had a good music battle between her mom's music (see Chill, Big) and the Greatest Hits of the Eighties. And even though I loved dancing once again to "Come on Aileen", the whole thing stung just a little.
Perhaps both things (the hotel and the wedding) feel like the missed exit signs that in the rear view mirror - slightly larger than they appear. Frost's little side routes. I too will wonder.
As I checked in and went to my room on the third floor, I noticed that there was a bar at the end of the hall. A little tired from my trip I went to the bar for a good night drink. The staff quickly sat me down in a booth. A waitress came into the booth lit a candle and looked up at me from waist level"
"Do you want something to drink?"
I quickly looked at the drink menu and feeling a little patriotic ( or possible to get rid of the smelly tofu, a food that violates some primal taboo) I said "I will have a Budweiser".
The waitress smiled and then asked the second question "Do you want a girl?"
Now this was a little tougher question. I know my company has a lousy 401k program, but I did not think this was part of the overall compensation plan. I was not really in a hurry to join the viral frequent flyer club. I said "no."
I did finish my beer in the place and was impressed with its mood. I could see a little into other booths where business men had two girls a piece. Cigarette smoke poured over the top of the paper walled booths and sank into the carpet. A Mandarin version of "House of the Rising Sun." played on the stereo. It was hypnotic. After settling up for my beer I went down the hall smiling, and wondering about the house in New Orleans.
When I told a few people after I got back to San Francisco, they mentioned that I should have at least gotten a price check. Asked about group rates. Dollars to RMB currency conversion. Perhaps it was a moment that I will look back to and pause. But that was the point of the following weekend.
After getting back to San Francisco and spending just enough time to mess with my body clock, I got on a plane to Philadelphia for the wedding of a girl who got away. Equal parts plump and perky, she was a fellow intern at Bellcore specializing in the psychology of user interfaces. At her heart she is a conversational babbler (a property I also hold) which follows the principle that if you say enough eventual you will stumble into the truth.
I blew it.
That hot New Jersey summer she was dating a cartoonist who she left behind at Carleton. I didn't feel that I should have made my "move" which usually comes across as slightly less subtle than the inflated male frigate bird. There is a point when looking back at the horizon where nobility collides with stupidity.
Halfway through that summer, she struck a conversation with some one waiting for the bus. A graduate student a Rutgers specializing in molecular biology. He was on the periphery - only occasionally joining the intern pack for important discussions on whether "Batman" was a better movie than "Dick Tracy" - nowhere to be seen into our trips to Harlem and the Jersey shore.
The summer eventually ended. She went back to the cartoonist. I went to New Hampshire. The cartoonist wanted to draw someone else. The grad student didn't like grad school and went to Minnesota (where she was) to probably get as far as away from mitochondria as he could. It was their wedding.
There were five interns in our mini group, but she was the only one with whom I have kept in touch. As a group we all tried to guess where we would be in ten years - the cotton candy dreams of youth. So many possibilities. I was going to be a work-a-holic computer programmer. She was not going to get married until she was 35.
The wedding lasted an hour. The reception had a good music battle between her mom's music (see Chill, Big) and the Greatest Hits of the Eighties. And even though I loved dancing once again to "Come on Aileen", the whole thing stung just a little.
Perhaps both things (the hotel and the wedding) feel like the missed exit signs that in the rear view mirror - slightly larger than they appear. Frost's little side routes. I too will wonder.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
